


If The Fates Allow

by evieoh



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Porn With Plot, Skyeward Christmas Fic Fest 2016, Smut, Snark and Banter, Stranded at the Aiport, at Christmastime, on a very compressed timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2019-04-08 04:14:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14096961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evieoh/pseuds/evieoh
Summary: Stuck at the airport on December 23rd due to a snowstorm that has grounded all flights, Skye just wants to get home to celebrate Christmas with her friends. Becoming nemeses with the very attractive but utterly irritating guy sitting next to her was not in her plan. But fate has a funny way of bringing two people together when they least expect it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all, my previous account was hacked and all my fics deleted, so I am reuploading them all now. This fic was originally posted in December 2016 for Skyeward Christmas Fic Fest, organized by the amazing Stargazerdaisy and Orlissa.
> 
> And extra thanks as always for Daisy being the most amazing beta/cheerreader ever.
> 
> (Title from 'Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas')

 

There is a quote about airports and purgatory that is floating just out of reach of her mind, but it seems like a particularly apt analogy right now. She’s going to blame severe exhaustion and a mounting state of hangry, coupled with extreme irritation at the airline, the weather, and people who cannot or will not control their screaming children who keep tripping over her feet as they run by. Her connecting flight was due for boarding 45 minutes ago. There was a brief and largely unintelligible announcement about 20 minutes ago that said something about the snow and visibility and  _“delayed until further notice”_. The announcement was accompanied by a collective groan from nearly every person waiting by the gate; everyone clearly exhausted from the frantic stress of travelling during the holidays.

Deciding that stretching her legs and hydration might help a little with the fraying edges of her sanity, Skye grabs her purse and heads for the vending machine against the wall. She narrowly avoids tripping over one of the screeching hellspawn children on her way back to her seat, and her left eye is beginning to pulse with the early warning signs of a nasty headache coming her way. So, of course, that’s the moment when the universe decides that she clearly isn’t suffering enough.

“You’re not supposed to leave your bag unattended,” comes gruffly from the seat beside hers. Glancing over in surprise, Skye sees a man who might possibly be the most attractive man she has ever seen in real life. The condescending sneer and look of clear superiority that colors his features kind of takes the hotness factor down a few levels, though.

“I was like five feet away!” Skye exclaims. “I just went to get a water from the vending machine.”

“The bag was completely out of your eyeline, right? I think that would count as unattended,” he responds snidely.

“So what, are you saying you put a bomb in my bag?” Skye snipes at him as she sits back down. Possibly a little too loudly. A few people in the surrounding seats turn to look at the two of them in alarm.

The guy leans closer and hisses at her, “You’re not supposed to say things like that in an airport either.”

“Jesus, do you work for the TSA or something? I left my bag alone for thirty seconds while I went to grab some water. It hasn’t been touched, it’s fine,” Skye huffs as she slouches down in her seat.

“I think the fact that you couldn’t see your bag at all kind of proves that you don’t actually know that,” he retorts.

“Oh my God,” Skye cries in exasperation. “Are you a robot? Do you want to inspect my bag? Do I need to swear a blood oath to never leave my bag unattended again? What do you want from me?!”

“You don’t think you’re being a little dramatic?” he asks her condescendingly.

“You don’t think you’re being a little bit of a massive toolbag?” Skye smiles back at him sweetly before turning away.

She can see the guy rolling his eyes, glaring at her from the corner of her eye, and he mutters something she doesn’t quite catch but can infer from his tone that it’s not exactly complimentary. Skye crosses her arms and resolutely ignores his presence. Or ignores him as well as she can when her elbow brushes against his arm whenever she inhales too deeply. Then the guy pulls a book out of his carry-on bag and seems to be just as determined to ignore her as she is him, and for some perverse reason it just makes Skye obstinately want to irritate him even more.

She shifts slightly in her seat so her elbow bumps against him a little harder, and when that doesn’t any more of a reaction from him than a tense inhale, she starts tapping her foot against the floor. That bugs him, she can tell. His shoulders are tense, and his jaw keeps clenching as he glances at her askance. He hasn’t actually said anything though, she can tell it’s on the tip of his tongue however, his mouth twisting like he’s holding back his words and the bitterness of them is choking him.

Skye smirks in satisfaction, barely even bothering to hide it from him, then she begins to drum her fingertips on the hard plastic of the seat, just slightly out of time with the beat of her tapping foot. He’s still pretending to read his book, but she can tell he’s not actually paying any attention to the words on the page. All of his focus is on pretending he is completely unaware of her. It’s petty as hell, but the joy Skye gets from pissing him off is honestly enough to distract her from how shitty she was feeling a few minutes ago. She’s half expecting him to get up and move away from her, but he is apparently just as stubborn as she is and he seems to be set on staying put. After the elderly woman sitting across from them gives Skye the polite old-lady version of the stink eye, Skye finally relents and stops her tapping, but she can see the way the guy beside her is still tense as he waits for her next onslaught.  _Excellent._

 

 

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Skye groans as she struggles to get comfortable in the ridiculously uncomfortable seat. It’s been almost two hours and her ass is going numb. They haven’t actually cancelled the flight. There is just another announcement every 20 minutes or so saying that the snow is still too bad to takeoff and they will be informed as soon as circumstances change.

She was playing on her phone for awhile, but her battery was running down and the few outlets all have a crowd of people waiting for their turn, so she didn’t want to risk it. So she’s bored. So bored, in fact, that talking to the asshole in the seat next to her is actually starting to look appealing. There is something faintly familiar about him too, and she’s not sure if he just has one of those faces ( _not likely_ ) or if she’s seen him somewhere before.

“So,” she begins a little tentatively. “We got off on the wrong foot and that might have been my fault.”

He barely glances up from his book to acknowledge her, but Skye continues on regardless.

“It’s just, you know, it’s Christmas Eve’s eve and I want to get home to see my friends, and I know everyone else here is feeling exactly the same, but I haven’t seen my friends in nearly a year and we have traditions, you know?”

He doesn’t respond in the slightest, but Skye plows ahead, barely stopping for a breath. “We always watch ‘Love, Actually’ and ‘Bad Santa’ and ‘Die Hard’ and eat candy canes and sugar cookies, and two of my best friends just got engaged, and I just really wanted to get there on time, you know?”

She finally stops and looks over at him, waiting for him to jump in with his story and then the two of them can bond like normal strangers stuck in this kind of situation and at least she might have someone to talk to to alleviate her boredom.

But he barely even grunts at her in response, still staring down at his book even though he hasn’t turned the page in at least five minutes.

The dismissal is clear.

Torn between stung and enraged at the rejection, Skye goes back to tapping her fingers along the edges of her seat.

 

 

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Two and a half hours. They haven’t had an announcement in 40 minutes. People are setting up camp, pulling out pillows or using their bags, some of them even stretching out on the floor. Skye finds herself gazing longingly at complete stranger’s pillows in a way that is bordering on lustful.

She’s spent the last eight months backpacking, first in Europe and then the last few months in Asia. She is so excited about coming home, seeing all her friends again after so long apart, spending the holidays together, celebrating Trip and Kara’s engagement.

At this current point though, the fact that there is a bed waiting for her at their new house is possibly topping her list of reasons she wants to be there rather than in this snowbound terminal, with a few hundred other people in varying states of frustration and exhaustion. It’s taken her three separate flights to get here. She’s crossed so many time zones she isn’t even sure exactly how long she’s been in transit, but she’s guessing it must be close to 20 hours by now. She keeps beginning to drift off, then jerking awake again as her head tilts down to rest on nothing.

She hates the snow. She hate airlines. She hates airports. She hates travelling. She makes a solemn vow to herself that once she finally arrives at Kara and Trip’s place, she is never going anywhere again.

There is a rational part of her brain that knows that that is just her exhaustion talking, but that part is overpowered by the fact that she can longer clearly remember what it feels like to be comfortable and well rested, by the part of her that is fantasizing about soft pillows and firm mattresses like some kind of cartoon dog with a leg of ham.

She shifts as much as she can in the seat, mumbling an apology when her elbow clips her neighbor to the right, before balling up her sweater and shoving against her shoulder to use as the only kind of pillow she has available. Her bag is clutched in her arms, one of her legs is curled under her on the seat, and she knows she is going to have the crick in her neck from hell when she wakes up. But this is honestly the closest to comfortable she’s felt in so long and she can feel herself fading into unconsciousness almost immediately.

 

 

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

The first thing she’s aware of is that her neck is killing her. It feels like it might be stuck at a permanent right angle for the rest of her life. She also has pins and needles in one of her legs and she can feel the remnants of drool at the side of her mouth. All of that is nothing, however, when compared to the growing sense of horror as she slowly realizes that the shoulder she is currently using as a pillow is not, in fact, her own.

At some point during her nap she clearly abandoned her admittedly crappy sweater pillow and decided that her seat mate's shoulder was a much better option. And,  _of course_ , it had to be the jerk to her left. There is a perfectly nice looking 80 year old man in an ugly Christmas sweater to her right,  _why couldn’t she have tilted to the right?_

Her cheeks are flaming as she jerks upright, mumbling an apology and wiping at her face ( _oh God, that is definitely drool._ )

The guy looks almost as embarrassed as her, once she is finally able to bring herself to look at him. She’s not entirely sure what  _he_  has to be embarrassed about. But then again, the deep crease in her cheek matches the seam of his shirt and implies that she was apparently sleeping on him for quite some time.  _How long did he let a strange girl he had, up til this point, known only through arguing with, use him as a pillow?_

She must be staring at him oddly because his expression suddenly turns a little defensive.

“You looked like you needed it,” he says, clearly a little uncomfortable but definitely about 80 percent less douchey than he was earlier.

“Well, thanks,” Skye replies, definitely feeling more rested and slightly closer to sane than she did before her nap. But that just means her brain is clear and refreshed for all the awkward that she now has rushing through her system, especially as she notes the small damp patch on the shoulder of his dark grey henley again.

“I did try to move you at one point,” he tells her. “But you moved back about thirty seconds later, and you growled at me when I tried again, so I figured it was safer to give up.”

“How long was I out for?” she asks, trying to stretch out the kink in her neck, groaning in pleasure at the sensation.

“About an hour,” he replies, something slightly strangled in his voice catching her attention. When she glances over at him, he is quickly glancing away from her, but Skye is pretty sure that he was just looking at her boobs as she stretched. The slight flush on his cheeks and his sudden interest in his own knees seems to support that theory. Skye smirks a little, stretching her arms above her head as she yawns exaggeratedly while jutting her chest out. She sees a slight tick in the muscles of his jaw as he clenches it ( _and holy hell that jawline is a work of art_ ), but other than that he seems steadfast in his refusal to give her a reaction. Skye shrugs as she goes back to stretching out her cramped and crooked body, glancing around the terminal to see that very little has changed since before she went to sleep. Everyone still looks annoyed and exhausted, though most of the screaming children seem to have finally worn themselves out.

The two of them sit in silence for awhile, but it’s lacking the tension of their earlier standoff. It feels almost companionable now. ( _Amazing what a stranger using you as a pillow will do for forcing a sense of intimacy._ )

After about half an hour though, he stands up. He looks at her oddly for second, then reaches for his carry-on bag before pausing and glancing at her again. Skye feels her lips twitch even as he opens his mouth to speak and his eyes narrow when he notices the movement.

He pauses, glances at his bag again as he seems to reconsider before taking a deep breath, rubbing the bridge of his nose in consternation.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” he finally says. “Would you please watch my bag?”

Skye glances down by their feet to the bag in question. It’s a black duffel; a little bulky, probably pushing the limits of what counts as carry on size. She can understand why he might not want to carry it around the terminal with him while he searches for a bathroom. She can’t resist needling him a little though.

“So, you don’t think I’m a ter-”

“Shhh!” he hisses at her, looking around them a little more wild-eyed than she thinks the situation really merits. “You cannot say that in an airport!”

“Ok, fine,” she relents, smirking at him. “So you don’t think I’m a  _‘T-word’_  anymore and you actually trust me to keep your bag safe?”

He looks like he is honestly considering just how bad it would be to ignore his bladder and hold it until they are finally able to board the plane rather than continue to deal with her.

“Ok, ok, I’m sorry,” she says, trying to get her smirk under control and replace it with something resembling contrition. (From the look on his face, it isn’t working.) “I promise I will look after your bag and make sure no one touches it. Including myself,” she swears.

He hesitates another second before finally nodding at her and walking away, clearly searching for any helpful kind of signage.

He’s tall. Really tall. Somehow she missed that when he was sitting down. She’s always had a weakness for tall. Plus his ass looks pretty damn good in those dark jeans, his long legs striding across the terminal with purpose.

Then he glances back in her direction and Skye quickly turns away to study her hands, her cheeks flaming at the idea that he might have just caught her staring at his ass.

 

He’s been gone about 15 minutes, and Skye is beginning to feel a little restless. Bored. And paranoid. What if  _he’s_  the one up to no good? What if  _his_  bag is the one with a bomb in it? What if it’s drugs and he’s walked away and left her quite literally holding the bag?

Skye has just reached her toe out to poke at the bag, not entirely sure what it will accomplish but not nearly brave or paranoid enough to actually open a complete stranger’s bag and rummage through it, when he reappears. Skye jumps as he clears his throat to get her attention, yanking her foot away from his bag and trying to project an aura of innocence.

The guy just gives her a faintly confused look and holds out one of the two cardboard cups he has in his hands.

“I wasn’t sure if you were a coffee drinker or a tea drinker, so I got you hot chocolate,” he says, looking unsure of himself for the first time in their acquaintance as he hands her the cup.

“Oh, I drink all three,” Skye smiles at him in thanks before taking a sip. “I’m easy.”

A slight flush settles in her cheeks as she realizes the double entendre, but he barely seems to have heard her. He settles back in his seat, busying himself with rearranging his bag and taking a sip from his own cup. Skye finds herself watching his throat as he swallows, her gaze slowly moving up to take in his razor cut jawline and cheekbones. The fact that he is proving to not be nearly as much of an asshole as he had first appeared is making it a lot harder to ignore how stupidly hot he is.

For a split second, in an impulse that she will later blame entirely on her travel induced exhaustion, Skye longs to lean over and run her tongue along to sharp curve of his jaw. She snaps herself back into reality as she realizes with horror that she has actually started to shift towards him.

Slumping back into her seat and taking a large sip of her hot chocolate to cover her mortification, Skye waits a long moment before glancing over at him from the corner of her eye again. He is still not looking in her direction, but there is something decidedly intentional about it now. And the tips of his ears look faintly pink.  _Oh God, had he noticed the way she had been about five seconds from molesting him in a public place? Or had her accidental innuendo sparked something in his mind after all?_

Clearing her throat, too loudly if the weird looks the people in the surrounding seats give her is anything to go by, Skye attempts to start fresh.

“So,” she says, smiling at him brightly. “I’m Skye, by the way.”

She waits for him to introduce himself in turn, like normal humans do, but he just stares at her with a weird look on his face. The silence drags on for a long minute, and she can see the hint of a slow smile beginning to form on his lips.

“It’s a real name,” she snaps defensively. He’s still staring, but now a little of that earlier smugness that made his face look so enticingly punchable has returned.

“So.  _Skye_ ,” he finally says. “And you’re going home to spend the holidays with your newly engaged friends?”

“Yeah…” she says slowly, a little freaked out by whatever is going on with him all of a sudden.

“Kara and Trip?” he asks, smirking at the confused expression she can feel her face settling into.

“Are you a stalker?” Skye demands, looking around the room suspiciously.

He laughs, and  _dammit,_  it is just unfair that someone’s face can do the things that his face does.

“I’m Grant,” he grins, holding his hand out to her. “I’m an old friend of Kara’s.”

And suddenly it all clicks back into place. Of course, he looked familiar! She’s seen his face dozens of times in Kara’s photos over the years; heard at least a hundred stories about  _‘my friend Grant’_. Somehow though, she had never actually met him. It seemed the two of them were never around, or even in the country, at the same time. The last Skye had heard of him, he was on his last tour in the Middle East, and then she had gone off on her world adventure with Miles. Belatedly, she realizes he is still holding his hand out and she shakes it, a little surprised at how gentle his grip is. It takes a beat for her to realize she has been holding onto his hand for longer than necessary and she quickly drops it.

“You cut your hair,” he says, a little randomly, and Skye reaches up to touch the shortened strands reflexively.

“Yeah,” she nods. “I wanted a change. Plus it was getting to be a pain in the ass while travelling.”

“It looks good,” he hastens to add. “I just didn’t recognize you at first. From Kara’s photos.”

There is a moment of awkward silence that follows as Skye racks her brain to think of something to break it.

“So what exactly are the chances of us meeting like this, on the same delayed flight?” Skye finally says, turning to face him properly, pulling one knee up under herself on the seat.

Grant looks at her wryly. “Especially under such genial circumstances.”

Skye grins back at him unrepentantly and the two of them pass the next hour sharing stories about their mutual friends and laughing. Then she eventually drags him into people watching with her, the two of them coming up with outlandish theories about the fellow travellers.

There is something about the way he laughs and jokes with her that seems like it isn’t something he’s used to, but she supposes that makes sense if he’s spent the last few years in warzones. He seems to be loosening up the longer he spends in her presence though, whether he intended to or not.

Their flight has been delayed for five hours now and the view out the window still shows a fairly uniform swirling of white. It doesn’t look like they’re getting out of here anytime too soon, and Skye can see a bar just a little way past their gate.

Turning to face her companion, she nods in the direction of the bar. “So, what do you say, buy me a drink?”

He shakes his head at her grin, but stands up anyway, waiting for her to join him.

The bar is completely decked out for the holidays - tinsel and bows decorating the booths and a string of lights behind the bar, Dean Martin crooning about snow over the sound system.

There is a screen in the corner of the bar so they can keep an eye on any changes with their flight, but going by the fact that the entire thing is pretty much just rows and rows with either ‘cancelled’ or ‘delayed’ written in red, Skye thinks they’ve probably got time for at least one drink.

Somehow she finds herself spilling her entire life story to this relative stranger over a glass of bourbon. Something about him, despite their initial animosity, is extremely easy for her to open up to. There is some kind of understanding in his expression when she talks about growing up the way she did and the ways it made her different. He seems like he gets it more than most.

She had been mostly alone when she found Jemma, Fitz and Trip, her relationship with Miles as on and off as it had ever been, still hacking for the Rising Tide, moving from place to place without any real goal, without a sense of belonging. Then one day she was caught hacking into Shield, a security consultancy firm, and somehow instead of facing charges she was offered a job.

It came along at the right time in her life, when she felt at enough of a crossroads that the idea of taking on a regular job actually seemed intriguing. And then she met Jemma and Fitz and Trip, and Bobbi a year or so later, and somehow she finally found that place that she belonged. But then, over time, everyone else began to pair up - Bobbi’s ex husband Hunter was back in her life and the two of them began what appeared to be a well rehearsed dance of will-they-or-won’t-they? Then Bobbi’s friend Kara moved back to LA, and she definitely caught Trip’s interest. Fitz  _finally_  made a move and told Jemma how he felt. And it wasn’t like Skye wasn’t happy for her friends, she was overjoyed for all of them. She just suddenly found herself feeling a little lonely again, like the odd man out. So, of course, that was when Miles reappeared.

She even finds herself telling him about the whole saga with Miles, and how exactly it was that has ended up stranded at this snowbound airport while the rest of her friends ( _her family_ ) are all warm and together and waiting for her to come home. It’s been too long since she left them, and there is a part of her that wonders if she stayed away so long because she is still a little embarrassed about the way she left.

She and Miles had broken up years ago, not long after she started working at Shield Security. The last few months of their relationship had been a series of successively more heated arguments about their personal philosophies that were essentially just Miles finding new and creative ways to accuse her of selling out. And then last year he reappeared in her life and for some reason, despite all of her friends emphatically telling her not to go back to that ‘toxic shame spiral of a relationship’ ( _thank you, Jemma_ ), she decided that it would be a fantastic idea to give up her entire life and go backpacking across the globe with him. ( _She’s calling it a quarter-life crisis._ )

“So, Kara said you were off on some kind of ‘soul-searching, walking the earth’ thing?” he prompts as he picks up his glass.

Skye laughs as she takes a sip, shaking her head. “That sounds like Kara.”

“Actually, I think she called it your ‘Eat, Pray, Love journey’ but I wasn’t sure what that entailed,” he says with a hint of a crooked grin.

“Basically it entails me being an idiot and believing my ex when he said he’d changed, and thinking it would be super romantic to travel the world together, giving up my job and my apartment and ignoring all my friends’ trying to convince me it was a  _terrible_  decision,” she tells him with a self-deprecating eye roll. “And that ended in a completely romantic screaming match outside a bar at 2am in Prague about two months later, and me ditching him to catch a train to Greece on my own.”

Grant is still giving her his full attention, something so genuine about it that she continues without prompting.

“From there I went I made my way through India and southeast Asia, before going to China. And it was just…I don’t know how to explain it,” she breaks off, a little embarrassed at how emotional her voice has grown. Clearing her throat she tries to put her thoughts into words that make sense. “Growing up, I had nothing that felt like I belonged to, you know? When I met Jemma and Fitz and Trip, I started to finally have a sense of it, of family or something close to it. But being in China, seeing all these people who looked like me, seeing all these mountains that just felt like...like  _home_. I’ve never felt anything like it before.”

She laughs a little at herself as she shrugs, but when she glances over at him to gauge his response, he’s just looking back at her with patience and warmth.

She still feels a little embarrassed at revealing quite so much of herself, feeling more vulnerable in a way than if she had stripped naked in front of this virtual stranger, but she continues anyway, somehow comfortable with showing him these pieces of herself that she’s not even sure she’d be able to reveal this way to her closest friends.

“It gave me this sense of...closure, I guess. Like I could make peace with the idea that I might not ever find my parents and I might never know why they gave me up, but I still know  _where_  I come from, I know that my history and my blood traces back to those mountains and rocks and rivers. It wasn’t the kind of closure I always imagined getting, but I just felt...clear. You know? Like maybe it’s ok that I don’t know who my parents are, they aren’t the only thing that shaped me and made me who I am, and there is so much history that went into making me that goes beyond just them. Does that make sense to you?”

He nods, something shifting in his expression that she can’t quite read. There is something so open and vulnerable and clear in his face though, like she has somehow stripped away something from him through her revealing of herself.  _Like he understands._

There is something charged in their eye contact, a kind of intensity that Skye can feel shiver along the surface of her skin as she licks her suddenly dry lips. His eyes finally drop from hers to follow the movement, a flicker of something there that sends a new feeling spark through her, but he glances away quickly before she can fully follow through on the thought.

He takes a large swallow from his glass, and Skye clears her throat, glancing around the small bar before going on.

“It was hard being away from my friends though, even though we kept in touch through Skype and Facebook and email and every other means possible. It’s not the same, you know? I’m not a part of their daily lives anymore.” She feels a little pathetic at the way her stomach dips as she worries about her place in her friends’ lives, but she can’t help it. She’s been away so long and they’ve all continued with their lives without her. “I mean, Trip and Kara had only just started dating when I left and now they’re living in a whole new state and they’re engaged. Fitz and Jemma are living together and they’re publishing their super-smart science papers. And Bobbi and Hunter…well, actually I think they’re kind of reassuringly exactly as on and off and bickering as when I left.”

Grant snickers at that, and Skye feels something in her stomach flutter at the way his face changes with his laughter.

“I’m happy for them all, I really am. I just…” she trails off, not exactly sure how to finish her thought in a way that doesn’t sound as needy and maudlin as it does in her head.

Grant is nodding in understanding again though, picking up just where she left off. “You’re just not sure where you fit in their lives anymore.”

When Skye glances over at him in surprise, he shrugs. “I’ve been overseas for the better part of eight years. It’s not exactly easy to maintain relationships.”

He pauses, and Skye can see him searching for the right words to express his thoughts, and once again she is struck by the thought that opening up is not something that comes easily to him.

“I’ve known Kara for...well, ever, it feels like. She’s my best friend, the first person to really seem to understand and accept me. But I’ve been gone so much and for so long, that sometimes I’m not sure if she needs me anymore.”

“But do you regret it?” she asks. “Would it have been better to stay home?”

Ward shakes his head. “No. What I was doing was important and I’m glad I did it. I was needed there. But now, it just feels like it’s time to do something for me and figure out what I want.”

Skye nods in understanding, that’s how she felt before she left on her trip. As much as she worries that her time away from them might have created a gulf between her and her friends though, Skye can’t bring herself to regret travelling. She’s definitely glad that things between her and Miles ended, but she wouldn’t give up the things she has learned about herself in these months, and the focus and ideas it has given her for her future. For the first time she has goals completely of her own, she isn’t following a path set for her by someone else or to please them, she is on one of her own making now and she can’t wait to start.

And she knows that realistically, all of her fears about her friendships are unfounded. The fact that when she turns her phone back on to send Jemma an update on her delay, there are three voicemails and 11 texts waiting for her, with all them bemoaning the extra wait until they see her and promising to wait on her to eat. Fitz has even been sending messages counting down the days til her return for the last week. There is also a text from Trip informing her that Kara’s friend Grant is supposed to be on the same flight as her and maybe she should try and find him so she’ll have someone to hang out with until their flight is finally cleared for takeoff. She considers responding to that one but decides to save the story for once they eventually get there and she can tell it with the full range of facial expressions that will be required to describe her and Grant’s initial encounters. Instead she shows the message to Grant before cramming in on his side of the table to take a selfie of the two of them, her cheek pressed against his as she pulls a face at her phone. He’s absurdly warm with his body pressed up against her, and he huffs a short laugh when she shows him the photo before sending it, his breath brushing against her cheek and sending a shiver down her spine, and  _wasn’t he a total asshole a couple of hours ago? Why is she blushing right now?_

(Skye quickly scuttles back over to her side of the table and downs the last of her drink before she does something stupid like give in to that voice inside her that is trying to convince her how much more comfortable his lap would be than the hard bench.)

He opens up a little more too, telling her bits and pieces of his life and childhood over their glasses of bourbon. He doesn’t go into detail too deeply, but there is enough that she can read from his expression and the tone of his voice, from the gaps left by the words he doesn’t say. She can recognize the scars from childhood wounds that still linger, unresolved. He still pauses a lot before speaking, like the words take effort to say aloud, like it’s something that doesn’t come naturally.

Skye finds herself reaching her hand across the table towards his before she is even aware of the action, freezing before she can actually touch him. The compulsion to comfort him is so natural and easy that it takes a beat for her to remember that they barely know each other, that she has no idea how he’d react to her her touch.

She wonders if he feels this strange connection as strongly as she does. It’s like she has known him for so much longer than the hours they’ve been stuck here in this airport, like there is a tether of understanding between the two of them already. It’s been a long time since Skye has felt this kind of connection to anyone, maybe not ever before. She doesn’t know if it’s the strangeness of their situation - being stuck in this terminal that is slowly starting to feel like a liminal space, like they exist outside the barriers of normal time and space. Or if it’s finally putting a face and a voice and a body ( _oh God, that body_ ) to all of Kara’s stories that she has heard over the years. Or maybe it’s just some combination of all of the above.

It’s also possible that it’s entirely exhaustion and alcohol that are fueling her intense desire to lean across the table and kiss him, the urge so strong she can practically feel her fingers sliding through his hair. She’s also going to blame the jet lag and the bourbon for the warmth that settles in her chest when he smiles at her and makes that voice in the back of her mind whisper that this feels something like  _fate_.

 


	2. Chapter 2

They finally board the plane, sometime before 11, to tired cheers from the people gathered at the gate. Skye and Grant line up together, but a quick glance at their boarding passes reveals they’re sitting at opposite ends of the plane. Grant pats her shoulder awkwardly when her row is called first. Skye squares her shoulders and tells him she’ll meet him on the other side as she marches off dramatically, grinning to herself when she hears him chuckle behind her.

She’s in the aisle seat of her row, so she has a clear sightline as he finally boards a few minutes after she’s gotten settled in her seat. He’s one of the final people to board, so her line of sight up the aisle is clear. He glances around the cabin and for a second Skye feels that dip in her stomach again as she wonders if he’s looking for her. She raises her hand to wave, but he’s already looked away. He picks his bag up as he goes to stow it in the overhead compartment and the bottom of his henley lifts just enough to reveal a sliver of his lower back and Skye is ogling him like some kind of teenager. Grabbing one of the in-flight magazines from the pocket in front of her, Skye busies herself with reading an inane article about making your own Christmas decorations to try and stop herself objectifying the best friend of one of her best friends.

 

Forty five minutes into the flight, Skye is almost wishing she was still stuck in the terminal. Her seatmates are a couple in the middle of what appears to be breaking up, if their not so quiet muttered argument is anything to go by. She has learned far more about the infidelities of total strangers than she ever needed to know.

Craning her neck to find Grant again, Skye notices that he seems to be the only one in his row. Glancing at the oversharing couple to her right from the corner of her eye, Skye considers moving. Most of the other people on the flight seem to either be sleeping or reading quietly; pretty much the only voices in the cabin coming from the couple beside her, who in all honestly are making Skye long for Hunter and Bobbi and their ridiculous arguments. When it devolves into a long stream of “I don’t care/I don’t care that you don’t care”, Skye is out. She hauls herself out of her seat, grabs her bag, and strides down the aisle to drop down in the empty seat beside Grant.

“Hey stranger,” she smirks at him, widening into an actual grin when he startles at her sudden appearance. There is something deeply satisfying about catching someone who seems so generally unshakable off guard.

“Why are you sitting in the middle seat? You’ve got the whole row to yourself?” she asks as she looks at him curiously.

Grant sighs and glances over her head in the direction she came, before marking his place in his book and putting it aside. “Don’t you have a seat of your own somewhere?”

There’s a glint in his eye though, and a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth that take the sting out of his words. Skye just shrugs and grins at him again. “Oh come on, Robot, you know you missed me. Plus, I was stuck next to a couple during a hideously ugly break up and it was getting awkward.”

Grant just nods, shifting his arm so she has more room to settle in. Skye feels that warmth bloom again at the gesture.

“So, seriously,” she persists. “Why aren’t you in the window seat?”

“Because I have the whole row,” he replies, like it’s a completely logical and explanatory response.

“Exactly,” Skye replies exasperatedly.

“What?” He’s exasperated now too, looking at her like he can’t understand how she doesn’t understand.

“It’s the window seat,” Skye stresses.

“Yes, but I’m not 12 and it’s also nighttime,” he retorts. “I’m not missing anything by not being pressed up against the glass, and I get all the arm room I want sitting in the middle.”

“Ugh, you’re ridiculous,” Skye huffs, standing up to climb over him to get to the window.

She hadn’t counted on just quite how much room his ridiculously long legs take up however, and she ends up literally clambering over him to get to the other side, cheeks burning as she straddles him in front of an entire plane full of strangers. Grant’s hand comes up to steady her, burning into her hip through the fabric of her jeans and sending sparks through her that pool in a steady pulse low in her belly as her eyes meet his for one heated moment. Skye feels frozen still, her body hovering over his. Then he tears his eyes away from hers and the spell is broken, his hand dropping away from her as she stumbles the rest of the way into the seat.

They spend the next hour bickering lightly (but it feels practically affectionate at this point) and watching a movie on her phone with the last of her battery. Skye must have fallen asleep at some point though, because the next thing she knows, the captain is informing them that they are preparing for their final descent. Her head is back on Grant’s shoulder, but this time she can feel a slight weight pressing against the top of her head in return. The deep, even breathing she can feel against her hair clues her in to the cause. Her shifting in her seat must wake Grant because in the next moment the weight is gone and he’s sitting up straight beside her with a slightly sheepish look on his face. Skye turns away to hide her smile, feeling that now familiar warmth bloom in her chest as she buckles her seatbelt and prepares for landing.

Maybe getting stuck at the airport for hours in a snowstorm with a cranky stranger wasn’t the worst thing that ever happened.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

It’s after 1am by the time their taxi pulls up outside Trip and Kara’s house, and Skye is so exhausted and over everything that she has no appreciation for her friends’ cute little bungalow or the funky looking new neighborhood. All she wants is a bed and a soft pillow.  
It is over eight hours after they were due to arrive, so the house is practically dark and Trip is the only one still up, waiting for them at the front door as they step out of the cab. Skye nearly loses her footing on the slippery path, but Grant is quick to steady her, keeping one hand wrapped around her elbow the rest of the way.

Trip engulfs her in a bear hug when she’s barely hit the porch steps, practically carrying her the rest of the way inside as she laughs against his chest. He really is like the big brother she always wanted when she was younger, and there is something about his hugs that makes her feel completely safe and at home, and she clings a little tighter when he starts to release her. She has missed everyone so much, and it’s almost like it all hits her at once now that she’s finally here. When she hears Grant shift a little awkwardly behind them, she pulls away from Trip finally, covering the slight sniffle as best as she can as she turns away from the guys to grab her bags from where Grant dropped them just inside the door.

When she looks back at them, Grant and Trip are doing that enthusiastic back patting that guys seem to do in place of actually hugging, as Trip asks about the flight delay and are they hungry or do they just want to crash right away.

Grant turns to her with his brows raised in question.

“Crash now,” Skye declares, with a perfectly timed yawn.

“Ok, well we made up your beds earlier already,” Trip tells them with a grin. “Since you two are the last to arrive, and the only non-couple, you guys get the air mattress and the pull out in the den.”

At this point Skye would happily sleep in the bathtub if it meant she could be horizontal for at least five hours, so she just hums in agreement as Trip steers them towards the den. The Christmas tree is in the corner, wrapped in twinkling colored lights that provide the only illumination other than the light from the hallway.

As promised, both the pull out sofa bed and an air mattress on the floor beside it are made up and ready. Once again, Grant turns to her with a questioning look, but Skye is already collapsing face first on the pull out.

“Ohhhhhh,” she moans as she rubs her face into the pillow. “I forgot what soft felt like, this is heaven, I’m never leaving this bed again. This is my home now.”

Trip laughs and Grant makes a sound that could possibly be a chuckle, “So, Skye’s taking the sofa then.”

Lifting her head from the pillow with great difficulty, Skye turns to look back at them. “Is that ok? I mean, I can move, or at the very least be rolled onto the air mattress if it’s no good for you.”

Grant is definitely chuckling at her now. “I’ve seen how vicious you can get when someone comes between you and your chosen sleeping spot already, remember?”

Skye feels her cheeks warm with a blush as Trip glances between the two of them curiously.

“It’s not like I bit you or anything, jeez,” she mutters as reluctantly drags herself back up into a sitting position. As comfortable as she might be now, she knows she’ll regret it if she sleeps in her jeans and boots again. Honestly, after 30+ hours now in the same clothes, she’s kind of euphoric at the notion of getting changed.

“I’m pretty sure you would have if I had tried to move you again,” Grant retorts as he puts his bag down beside the air mattress and ignores the stink eye Skye shoots at his back.

After digging through her own backpack for her toiletries and something to sleep in, Skye follows Trip’s directions to the guest bathroom, showering quickly even though the hot water feels like the closest thing to heaven that she can imagine, before changing into her comfy pajamas and brushing her teeth. She actually feels something close to human again.

By the time she comes out of the bathroom, Trip has already gone to bed himself and Grant is standing with his back to her, wearing sweatpants and pulling a lighter grey T-shirt over his head.

It’s like the moment on the plane turned up to 11.

Skye freezes in the doorway at the sight of his bare back, the muscles rippling as he tugs the shirt on. Her mouth feels too dry and her skin flushed and this is definitely an overreaction to the sight of a little skin, but knowing that isn’t helping it go away at all. Sure, it’s been a few months since her rebound fling with the med student she met backpacking in Thailand, but it definitely hasn’t been long enough for her to be drooling like this.

And then he turns towards her, clearly having heard the floorboards creak and she gets a glimpse of his abs and the faint trail of dark hair disappearing under the sweatpants slung low on his hips, the sharp v-line of the muscles there drawing her eye, and suddenly she isn’t having a problem with her mouth being dry anymore. God, she is actually drooling over him? It’s mortifying

Skye finds herself wishing that she had some sexier pajamas than a pair of old boxer shorts and a T-shirt that she’s pretty sure she stole off Trip when they were roommates, so it’s at least five years old.

But then the way that Grant’s gaze seems to falter on her bare legs, before he slowly drags his eyes up the rest of her body in a way that feels almost like a caress, makes her feel like maybe she doesn’t need anything slinky to catch his attention after all.

Feeling a burst of butterflies in her stomach, Skye resolutely turns her eyes away from the way his T-shirt clings to every single curve and definition of his arms and chest. He clearly has not been letting himself go since getting out of the army, she thinks to herself with a shiver as she slides between the sheets on the pull out bed.

She is acutely aware of how close he is, even though the air mattress is just out of her line of sight from where she is laying. She can hear every breath he takes as he gets comfortable, and all she can picture is that flash of his bare skin and she can feel her own breath hitching for a second.

“Goodnight Skye,” he murmurs to her in the near darkness, his voice low and running directly to the pooling warmth settle low in her belly.

“Night, Grant,” she replies, licking her suddenly dry lips. All of her earlier exhaustion has vanished, replaced by this thrumming awareness of him that is buzzing beneath her skin.

She is laying on her side, staring at the twinkle lights that wink at her from across the room, casting the shadows in hints of purples and reds and greens. She was so tired she could barely keep her eyes open an hour ago, and now she is laying here with her heart pounding and alert to the slightest shift of Grant’s movements or breathing. She has recited the alphabet backwards twice and counted at least 80 sheep when she hears him sigh in frustration and toss and turn suddenly.

Rolling over to the side of the pull out closest to him, Skye peers down at him, barely able to make out his features in the dim light on this side of the room. He freezes as soon as he notices her leaning over above him, his expression softening as his eyes settle on her face.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, a little mortified at how breathless her voice sounds.

Grant looks away from her for a second to glare at the air mattress. “I’m fairly certain this thing has a leak in it.”

“Oh,” Skye replies, feeling a suggestion on the tip of her tongue but biting back the urge.

Grant hisses quietly as he rolls onto his side, quickly rolling back onto his back and rubbing his hip as he glares at the ceiling in frustration.

And suddenly her offer is spilling out without any permission from her brain. “You could sleep with me.”

Grant’s entire body goes still and Skye is fairly certain she can’t even hear him breathing as her face burns.

“I mean,” she tries again, gritting her teeth at the way she cannot seem to get her foot out of her mouth when it comes to this guy. “You could share the pull out, it’s big enough for the both of us.”

He doesn’t respond for such a long time that Skye thinks he just won’t acknowledge her offer at all. She is frozen, still half leaning over the edge of the sofa bed and it feels too awkward to move at all, but hanging where she is, is also starting to feel pretty damn awkward too. Just as she is finally deciding to roll back over to the other side of the bed and pretend that she never opened her mouth at all, Grant suddenly sits up and pushes his blankets aside. Skye stays where she is for a moment longer, her brain taking an embarrassing extra minute to catch up to what is happening, until he looks at her questioningly as he stands up. Once it finally clicks, Skye scuttles back across the bed with faintly crab-like movements as Grant awkwardly settles himself on the other side of the pullout.

The bed that felt so massive with only her in it suddenly feels a little small as Skye tries to keep her any part of her body from touching any part of his. She is practically clinging to edge of the mattress and she’s pretty sure that Grant is doing the same on his side too.

It’s going to be a long night, she thinks wryly. She can’t imagine getting sleep any time soon. Every single one of her senses is on high alert, her blood pounding in her ears and her fingertips tingling as she stares across the bed at Grant’s back. Her breathing has settled in to mimic the pattern of his without her even realizing it, and she can’t seem to pull her eyes away from the sight of his broad shoulders in the dim light.

She startles when he starts to roll over to face her, she had been so lost in staring at the rise and fall of his shoulders with his breath that she almost has to shake herself to clear her focus.

“Should I go back to the floor?” he asks her, raising himself up on an elbow to look at her and she can just make out way his brows are drawn together in concern as the lights twinkle behind him.

“Why?” Skye asks, her voice breaking a little in her surprise.

Grant raises an eyebrow at her and doesn’t bother actually responding verbally, just gestures to the way she is laying at the very edge of the mattress.

Skye finally manages a deep breath, and she rolls her eyes (mostly at herself) as she moves a fraction closer to him, forcing her muscles to relax. “It’s fine,” she insists.

Grant still seems a little uncertain, but he lays down again, on his back this time. Now that neither of them are clinging to the edges of the bed anymore, Skye is painfully aware of how close his body is to hers. She can feel the warmth of him, the way the mattress shifts slightly as he breathes in deep and slow. His presence is somehow both calming and creating an effect similar to someone setting off fireworks in her veins.

Skye is laying on her side, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest, and her hand is resting in the space between their bodies when she first feels his fingertips brush against hers. At first she thinks she might have imagined the sensation, her breath hitching as her entire body stills. Then she notices that the steady sound of his breathing has stopped too though, and the way he is frozen too beside her. Shifting slightly, Skye reaches her fingertips out without moving her palm from where it lays between them. When her pinky brushes against the side of his they both pause again, and Skye would swear that the only sound in the room is her heart pounding so hard in her chest that she’s surprised she hasn’t woken up the others already. Then he reaches out slowly and softly traces his fingertips along the back of her hand.

Skye shivers as a trail of goosebumps spread up her arm from his touch, and she feels his breath brush across her cheek as he turns his head to face her. They’ve both moved closer without her noticing it, only inches separating them now. She can feel her own breath stutter as he turns her hand over so that her palm is pressed against his, his fingers sliding between her own.

For a few moments they remain like that, neither of them moving any closer, but neither making a move to separate their joined hands either. Then his fingers squeeze lightly against hers and Skye returns the pressure. The next thing she knows he’s shifting even closer, so close she feels his nose brush against hers when she lifts her eyes to meet his. They both seem to hold their breath for another beat, searching each other’s gaze in the dim lighting. Skye can feel the moment they both seem to find what they’re looking for, the tension draining from her body on a shaky exhale. She offers him a smile, small and tentative but genuine, and she can feel the warmth of his gaze settle deep in her as he returns it.

His free hand slides up her arm to slip into her hair, his fingers twining through the strands and his blunt nails scratching against her scalp lightly and sending a shiver through her like an electrical spark.

She shifts closer, his breath hot on her lips. Her breasts are bare under the T-shirt and her chest brushes against their still joined hands and she can feel her nipples harden at the contact. His fingers squeeze against hers in another brief pulse and she returns the pressure a second later, like they’re sharing some kind of Morse code. Neither of them have spoken a word aloud still. Skye can feel the anticipation skittering along her skin, his lips so close they’re practically brushing against hers, but neither of them moving to increase the pressure. It’s like a sweet torture, dragging out the moment before the actual kiss for as long as they can stand it. His fingers are still carding through her hair, and those shivers aren’t going anywhere at all. Skye’s lips feel parched, and she runs her tongue along them without thinking, freezing again as she feels the tip of her tongue graze his lip. His fingers have stilled in her hair, but he doesn’t even seem aware of it as he holds his breath and stares into her eyes with so much heat Skye feels herself falter a little.

But then, so slowly - painfully, achingly slowly - she leans in a fraction, and runs the tip of her tongue lightly across the full curve of his lower lip.

She can feel the shudder that runs through him, his fingers tightening in her hair and his grip increasing around the hand he’s still holding. Skye pulls back far enough to meet his gaze again, her self-satisfied smirk freezing on her lips at the look in his eye. His pupils look completely blown and his breathing is ragged though they haven’t even kissed yet.

Skye’s breath catches in her throat when he finally closes the distance between them, his mouth slanting over hers with a kind of desperation, his fingers still working in her hair, pulling her closer. Her moan is smothered by his mouth, and Skye tilts her head to deepen the angle of the kiss, using the pressure of her lips to part his and slip her tongue inside. She swallows the guttural groan that escapes him, finally breaking the clasp of their hands to slide both her hands to the back of his neck to haul him even closer.

He groans again as she rolls her hips against him, his hand moving from her hair down to grip under her thigh as he tugs her leg over his hip, grinding against her roughly.

Skye finally drags her mouth away from his, gasping to catch her breath as Grant presses open mouthed kisses against her throat. It’s like a dam has burst, all those torturous minutes of breathing each other in with their lips almost but not quite touching, and now their touches are frantic and feverish, desperate but still something so gentle about the way they reach for each other.

Skye’s hands are everywhere, trying to touch all of him at once - sliding across his shoulder to grip the curve of his bicep, down his back, tracing the dip of his spine as he shivers against her, slipping between where their bodies are pressed against each other to slip under his T-shirt and trace the contours of those muscles she was drooling over a brief glimpse of earlier. Grant shudders again at her light touch, his grip on her thigh tightening as he pulls her firmly against the growing bulge in his pants. His teeth scrape over her the sensitive skin at the base of her throat and Skye shivers, eagerly rolling her hips against him.

Grant groans against her shoulder before rolling onto his back, pulling her with him so she winds up straddling his hips. Bracing her arms beside his head on the pillow, Skye leans down to capture his lips with her own once again, moaning as his teeth nip at her bottom lip, his tongue darting out to soothe the sting.

Grinding her hips against him, so hard where she can feel him pressed against her and her underwear feels slick against her flesh already. It’s crazy, the way he has affected her. It’s not like Skye is a newcomer to one night stands, but a one night stand with a virtual stranger who she is most definitely going to have to see again since they share a best friend? She can think of at least a hundred reasons why that might be a bad idea. But something about this guy has caused a reaction in her from their first contentious interaction. Everything that passed between them since then has only built that flicker into a wildfire as he kisses her so deeply she loses her breath.

Then his hands are on her hips, guiding her roughly over his erection and sending sparks of white noise through her as the stimulation intensifies. She gasps his name, her fingers clawing in his shoulders, and all of those reasons why this might not be the best idea fly from her mind, lost in the pleasure building inside her.

One of Grant’s hands slides under her shirt, his fingers skating lightly across her lower back before trailing along her ribs. His touch is torturously slow, and Skye growls in anticipation as he traces the curve of her breast in a light barely-there touch. He grins against her lips, and Skye shifts the angle of her hips so that his erection is pressed directly against the damp warmth between her thighs, smirking back when his touch falters at the sensation.

But then Grant’s hands are gripping the hem of her T-shirt, glancing up at her with a question in his eyes before he tugs it up and pulls it over her head. She catches the faint gleam in his eyes from the soft lighting, and then his hands are cupping her breasts, his thumbs flicking over her nipples and teasing them into taut peaks. Skye moans at the feel of his roughened skin over her sensitive flesh, her own hands coming up to press against his, increasing the pressure of his grip on her breasts until it’s almost rough. Skye shudders and she can hear Grant growl low under his breath before he leans up and takes one of her nipples in his mouth. He scrapes his teeth lightly over the now slick skin and Skye groans, her fingers clenching in his hair roughly as she pulls his head closer.

She can feel Grant smirk against her, his tongue flicking across her nipple and sending another shiver through her as she feels her underwear getting damper. Feeling a strong need to tip the scales (and possibly just because she wants to actually touch those muscles she was drooling over earlier) Skye grabs a handful of his shirt and tugs at it restlessly until he obligingly leans back so she can pull it over his head.

Holy shit, his arms are magnificent.

Skye’s fingers stutter as she runs her hands across his shoulders, a gratifying trail of goosebumps forming in their wake. Grant is staring up at her with a mix of emotions she can’t quite identify. There is definitely lust there though, that much is clear.

Pushing him back down onto the bed, Skye follows, her mouth moving along his jaw and down his throat, sucking and licking and biting her way down his body. The sounds he makes when her teeth scrape over his jugular have her paying special attention to the spot, grinning when his hands grip her hips hard enough to leave bruises.

And then he’s flipping them over, those strong arms caging her as he kisses her with an almost violent desperation, a deep whine in his throat as he rolls his hips against her again. There is so much barely restrained tension in his body, and Skye can’t stop touching him, running her fingers across the muscles in his back. She’s never been that obsessed with overly muscled men in the past, but she is rapidly rethinking her position on that right now. He growls against her lips, the sound rough and dark, and Skye shivers, pushing her hips against him.

One of his hands slides down between their bodies, slipping under the waistband of her shorts without hesitation and caressing her through the soaked cotton of her underwear. Skye moans and thrusts herself closer to his touch, shuddering as his knuckles brush firmly over her clit.

“Please,” she murmurs brokenly against his lips, her hand snaking down to grip his wrist as she struggles to drag his hand into her underwear.

Grant swears softly, his head falling down to rest on her shoulder as his breath stutters. His fingers slide softly through the slickness between her thighs and she can feel him hard against her leg, grinding against her as his teeth find her skin. Skye’s own hand is in her mouth, biting hard on her fingers to muffle the moans that escape her as his fingers work her over. His thumb presses against her clit in smooth circles as he curls two fingers inside her, hitting her G-spot with startling accuracy and sending stars flashing behind her eyelids. Her teeth are cutting into her own fingers with the effort not to scream at the sensations her is wringing from her body, her back arched taut and her legs wrapped around him as she thrusts hard against his hand until she explodes.

Skye feels boneless, a shiver that starts in her toes and works its way to the roots of her hair settling in her body as she comes down, Grant still holding himself above her, his fingers lightly caressing her inner thighs as the aftershocks fade.

Pulling Grant’s face level with hers again, Skye kisses him hungrily. Her teeth hit his and it’s messy and desperate and perfect. Her fingers are still shaking so she uses her legs to push his sweatpants over his hips, dragging them down his thighs until he can kick them off. And then she can feel him, hot and hard and heavy against her thigh, and fresh wave of heat rushes through her. Bucking her hips against him, even through her shorts she can feel him against her and she groans into his mouth, her hands sliding down to grip his ass as she grinds against him.

Grant groans helplessly, breaking the kiss to lean his forehead against hers as he breathes harshly.

“I don’t- fuck,” he growls as she slides her hand between them and wraps it around his length. He moans as she pumps her fist around him slowly, kissing her messily and hard as his hips thrust into her touch. When he finally breaks the kiss his voice is ragged as he tries to catch his breath. “I don’t have anything.”

Skye stares up at him in confusion for a moment, before it clicks in her brain. “Oh, condoms,” she says, her voice almost embarrassingly breathless. “I have some in my bag.”

Grant nods, his eyes closing as she adjusts her grip on him, sliding her hand up and down slowly. When he finally opens them again, he looks like he’s trying to glare at her for distracting him, but it’s ruined by the utterly wrecked expression that covers his features. Skye just smirks up at him unrepentantly before releasing him as she leans over the side of the pullout to grab her toiletries bag, rifling through it briefly before pulling out a condom and then tossing the bag back to the floor uncaringly.

Tearing the packet with her teeth, ignoring everyone who has ever told her not to in her eagerness, Skye slides the latex out of the foil packet and reaches down to wrap her hands around his cock again. Grant’s eyes are steady on hers, the simmering heat in them almost enough to steal her breath, as she rolls the condom over his length before hurriedly shoving her shorts and underwear of and lining him up between her thighs.

He leans down to kiss her again, soft and sweet this time, as he sinks down slowly, giving her time to adjust to the stretch and fullness of him inside her before he begins to thrust shallowly. Skye whimpers as her fingers dig into his back, her thighs wrapped around his hips as she tries to push him harder. Grant nips her lip one last time before he pulls away, leaning back to rest on his knees without stopping his torturously slow strokes inside her. The change in the angle of his thrusts has the head of his cock hitting all the right spots inside her and Skye bites down on her hand again as she feels the moans build in her throat. Grant’s hands are back on her breasts, his eyes never leaving her as he pinches her nipples just as he increases the tempo, his thrusts going deeper and harder as Skye feels the heat begin to spread through her body. She honestly isn’t sure if she manages to contain the noises that try to escape her, and she doesn’t even care at this point. The only things that exist are Grant’s body and her own and the things he is doing to her. She can feel her orgasm building, the waves of heat cresting as her breath comes harshly, and then he’s swiping his thumb against her clit again and she tumbles over the edge with a sharp cry, Grant leaning over to capture it with his mouth.

He follows a moment after her, slumping against her heavily as they both struggle to catch their breath, bodies shaking as the sweat begins to cool on their skin. He’s still kissing her, lazy messy kisses as they both come down, his hands cupping her face and his eyes watching her with something that looks like wonder.

When he finally shifts to slide his body off hers and roll onto his back beside her, Skye can’t quite contain the whimper that escapes her and Grant grins at the sound, leaning over to kiss her again before sitting up. He tugs his pants back on and makes his way down the hall to the bathroom, to dispose of the condom Skye supposes as she digs under the blankets to find her own clothes. Her post orgasmic haze is blending with her jet lag and she can feel herself drifting off already. The pullout dips as Ward slides back into the bed beside her, pulling his shirt on before laying down and opening his arms to her. Skye immediately snuggles in and falls asleep almost instantly with her cheek pillowed on his chest, wrapped in his warmth.

 

Grant slips back onto the air mattress when they first hear the sounds of the others stirring in the morning, Fitz’s voice ringing down the hallway loudly - the perfect alarm. The guy has never learned the meaning of ‘inside voice’ thank God, Skye thinks with a grin as she imagines the barrage of questions she and Grant would have to deal with if their friends came out and caught them unaware, still wrapped in each other’s arms.

In the excitement of the morning, amidst exuberant greetings and everyone hugging and trying to yell their latest stories louder than everyone else, it takes Skye almost half an hour to notice that the T-shirt Grant is wearing looks a little more familiar than it should. As she glances down at herself she realizes with growing horror that they must have accidentally switched shirts in their sleepy redressing in the darkened room.

While Skye knows that there is no such thing as secrets in their ridiculously gossipy group of friends, and they will certainly find out that she and Grant slept together at some point, she’d kind of like to delay that moment and the barrage of questions and opinions for as long as possible. Not the least for the fact that as far as everyone else knows, she and Grant are complete strangers. Which, ok they kind of are. But seven hours stuck in an airport in a blizzard makes time move in a completely different way. She feels like they skipped through most of the getting to know each other stage somehow in those hours; like she’s known him for months already.

Luckily, everyone else seems to be distracted enough with screeching “I can’t believe you’re here!” at both Skye and Ward, and beginning the breakfast preparations, that they don’t seem to be paying any attention to what shirts the two of them are wearing, or the fact that Skye’s hair is definitely more messy than sleep alone should have caused. Or the faint hickey she can see poking through Grant’s neckline and the furtive looks the two of them keep shooting each other.

She almost thinks they might have gotten away clean. Until halfway through breakfast that is, when Trip clearing his throat distracts her from playing footsy with Grant under the table and grinning at the way his ears blush when he mock glares at her. When she looks up and meets Trip’s observation across the table though, she stills at the sight of the broad grin on his face as he looks between her and Grant. Everyone else has paused now too, following Trip’s gaze and looking at the two of them expectantly. Skye can feel her own ears burning with a blush now as she resolutely drops her gaze back down to her plate and cuts into her pancakes to avoid the scrutiny. She startles a little as Grant’s hand settles on her thigh, but she relaxes as he squeezes reassuringly.

“What’s going on?” Fitz finally breaks the silence, looking around the table in confusion. “What are we staring at?”

“Oh, I was just wondering how Skye slept last night,” Trip smirks. “No bumps in the night?”

“Nope,” Skye mutters, stuffing another forkful of pancakes in her mouth.

Trip is not to be dissuaded though. “You know, I thought I heard some noises out here after I left you two alone. Everything ok?”

His tone is full of innocent concern, but his eyes are twinkling with laughter as he looks at her and Skye is already plotting her future revenge.

For now, she smiles at him sweetly as she replies. “I slept just fine thank you, Antoine.”

Understanding is starting to dawn in Kara’s eyes now as she looks between her fiance and his best friend and her own. Surprise and laughter seem to be warring for control of her expression, and Jemma doesn’t seem that far behind her as she studies Skye’s flushed cheeks.

“And what about you, Grant?” Trip asks, barely flinching as Skye’s foot connects solidly with his shin. “Did you sleep well? No surprises?”

Trip is looking very pointedly at the hickey that is very visible now that Grant’s collar has shifted, and Skye can tell the exact moment that Fitz sees it and connects the dots because he gasps like scandalized society matron. Kara is definitely grinning now, practically a smirk really, but Grant just levels Trip with a bland look in response as he readjusts his shirt casually before turning back to his food. “Best sleep I’ve had in years.”

“What exactly am I missing here?” Hunter asks, turning to look at Bobbi in confusion.

He seems to be the only one remaining who hasn’t had the other shoe drop yet, and Skye steels herself for the onslaught she knows is about to come.

“So,” Trip says smugly as he leans back in his chair, looking like the cat that got the canary. “How exactly did Grant end up in my shirt?”


End file.
